I’m pleased to announce Missouri Open 2015, a regular difficulty college tournament planned for the fall of 2015. Questions will be written and edited by Will Alston, Itamar Naveh-Benjamin, and Shan Kothari, with additional writing contributions from Rohith Nagari and Ewan Macaulay. We are aiming for mirrors of this tournament to be run throughout October and November 2015.

This tournament’s distribution and questions are inspired by those of National Academic Quiz Tournaments, but they will not use the exact distribution or format that NAQT uses. Packets will consist of 24 tossups and 24 bonuses according to the distribution we have outlined and will be played in their entirety. To ensure that games do not take too long, and to stick with the NAQT-inspired theme, tossups will be capped at five lines in length (before power-marks and guides) and bonus parts will be capped at two lines apiece.

A separate packet of tiebreakers will be provided. In the event of a tie, a single question should be read from this packet in order to break the tie.

As the tournament’s name suggests, this tournament will be open-eligibility as previously discussed. We strongly encourage participation by veterans and strong high school players in this tournament. However, a discount is provided for teams who choose to compete consisting entirely of players from a single school: the mirror fee for this tournament will be $45 per open team and $25 per single-school team. This discounted single-school fee will apply to both collegiate teams and high school teams.

We've decided to make a change to the distribution. The "Mixed Big Three" category is now going to be "Mixed History, Literature, Other Science, and Other Arts" with all four of those categories roughly equally represented. The additional Other Science will mostly comprise additional math questions.

Make sure your seatbelt is fastened wrote:The first post has been updated to reflect that the single-school discount will apply to teams from a single college OR teams from a single high school.

Do you have a list of sites (and if possible, what dates those sites are hosting on) yet?

Nick ConderLouisville, KY

"Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free."--Eugene V. Debs

We have confirmed mirrors at Brown, VCU, Cambridge, and Mizzou. We're working on getting mirrors at Berkeley, Michigan State, McMaster, and Minnesota. We're open to other mirrors as well, particularly in the Southeast.

There will be some overlap between MSU and Mizzou (for example, I believe UIUC intends to attend the MSU mirror), but we never expected the Mizzou mirror would attract that many teams in the first place.

That's the plan. Barring a compelling objection, I'll put up an announcement soon, so if you do object, let me know right away. The only other options for us are after ACF Fall on November 7 (e.g. Nov 14, 21).

Shan Kothari

Plymouth High School '10Michigan State University '14University of Minnesota '19 (hopefully!)

I sent an email out to a bunch of Minnesota folks and schools from nearby states to get input about a date. I'll decide for sure, and put up a forum post, by Thursday morning at the latest. If you didn't get the email, and would attend the Minnesota mirror either 10/24 or 11/14 but not the other, please DM me.

Shan Kothari

Plymouth High School '10Michigan State University '14University of Minnesota '19 (hopefully!)

I should make one final note about the distribution: Jazz is now part of Other Arts, and not the 1/1 audio arts distribution (which should be thought of as "classical music" now) since we've expanded the Other Arts distribution as part of the rotating extra 0.25/0.25 per packet.